Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Star Wars Comic Book Review/Recap: Star Wars #20 & Han Solo #1

This week had two new Star Wars comic releases: Star Wars #20 and Han Solo #1

Star Wars #20 is another Obi Wan Kenobi story about him
protecting young Luke on Tatooine. In this story Jabba the Hut has hired a
Wookie bounty hunter to hunt down the person responsible for embarrassing his
thugs. The Wookie starts by kidnapping Owen, because the farm is close to the
place where the thugs were taken out. Obi Wan comes to Owen’s aid, but finds
the Wookie bounty hunter hard to handle.

These Obi-Wan one off stories buried within the Star Wars
comic are some of my favorites. This is only the third one, but I almost want
an exclusive run of just this series, but hopefully they are saving some big
stories for an actual Star Wars spinoff movie.
This was a nice story, because we see Obi-Wan not sure of himself. He is
getting older, and is out of practice. He thinks he can take out the bounty
hunter, but during the fight he starts to doubt himself. Then he trusts in the
force and sees the solution.

The climax of the story gave me chills. It was a very well
written by Jason Aaron who seems to be very in tune with all of his Star Wars material,
but especially the Obi-Wan stories. The story was progressing one way, and I
should have seen the ending coming, but I didn’t. Aaron built the perfect crescendo
to the story, and wrote it brilliantly. When I turned the page and saw who
actually saves the day it was a great surprise.

This might be my favorite of the three stories from the
Obi-Wan adventures, but they have all been good. I can’t wait until the next
adventure drops and we get more of a glimpse of what a standalone Obi-Wan
Kenobi film would look like.

Han Solo #1 is the first issue in a limited run Han Solo
standalone adventure. I’m not sure I’m on board with were the story starts and
where Han is at. He has stopped helping the Rebellion after the Battle of Yavin
and is back to smuggling. Granted he is turning jobs down, and it seems his
heart isn’t into doing jobs, but he still left the Rebellion.

After the Battle of Yavin, and what all three heroes went
through I don’t see him abandoning the Rebellion to go back to a life of smuggling,
even if his heart isn’t in it. To start the story Leia has tracked Han down to
give him a job. She wants him to help rescue some spies whose cover has been
blown. To accomplish this Han gets to enter a dangerous race and show what the
Falcon is made of.

This is a good story, and when I got past the start of the
issue I’m excited to see where this comic goes. I just don’t understand why you
start with Han not part of the rebellion after the Battle of Yavin. They could
have just as easily started this adventure with him being part of the
Rebellion. He still needs money to pay off Jabba, so he wants to keep the
winnings if he is able to win the race he enters. It serves no purpose to show
Han away from the Rebellion to start the comic. If they set it up right after the events of
Yavin, no one would know he was part of the Alliance.

This gripe aside the art and the story is engaging, and I’m
interested to see a cannonball like race story set in the Star Wars universe.
Hopefully they don’t make any other strange timeline story alterations, but
even so I’m along for the ride.